Throne and Liberty Greatsword/Longbow PvE build guide: Leveling, itemization, skills, and scaling

One of Throne and Liberty's strongest DPS rotations can be achieved by combining Greatsword and Longbow into a single build. This off-meta build is as versatile in ranged combat as in melee. Aside from personal DPS, this setup can offer incredible team support through cooldown reduction, resource sustain, damage amplification, and crowd control.

This guide offers a template for a basic Greatsword and Longbow build in Throne and Liberty. It explains what skills to specialize in, where to allocate passives, what gear to aspire for, and how to level toward the endgame.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the writer's opinions

Throne and Liberty Greatsword & Longbow skill build for leveling

As one of the DPS-heavy classes of Throne and Liberty, leveling up a Greatsword/ Longbow build is easy. Longbow skills like Strafing, Zephyr's Nock, and Decisive Sniping can provide good burst damage during leveling. Valiant Brawl is the only viable spammable option for melee lovers, with the Stunning Blow + Death Blow combo opening up after level 11.

The standard Longbow skill roster (Image via NCSoft)

Active Skills

Strafing is the best option for leveling as it allows players to stay at range, apply pressure, and scale well into the endgame. Decisive Sniping will begin to see more usage in the endgame when combined with weakening effects and passives. Stunning Blow and Death Blow is one of the quickest and heaviest bursts in the kit.

The active skill priority is as follows:

Strafing
Decisive Sniping
Zephyr's Nock
DaVinci's Courage
Nature's Blessing
Brutal Arrow
Death Blow
Stunning Blow
Ensnaring Arrow
Deadly Marker

If players need to sustain during leveling, ranking up Nature's Blessing and DaVinci's Courage are the only two options to get some burst healing.

For the level 50 Ultimate skills, players can safely choose Guillotine Blade for personal damage. For more support-oriented players, Blitz can be a great option to reset the cooldown of Nature's Blessing for more healing or squeeze extra damage out of Decisive Sniping.

Passives

Passive skills are persistent skills that offer permanent bonuses or temporary, situational buffs that boost the combat effectiveness of certain playstyles. Players can mix and match passives from two weapon classes and bolster some lacking aspects.

The passive skill priority list is as follows:

Robust Constitution
Vital Force
Rapidfire Stance
Steady Aim
Victor's Morale
Sniper's Sense
Indomitable Armor
Earth's Blessing
Cold Warrior

Victor's Morale is the best passive to level up during your journey toward level 50, as any arrow fired will provide multiple instances of health and mana. Robust Constitution and Indomitable Armor will give some much-needed defense boost. Rapidfire Stance will boost your ranged damage significantly.

Skill Specialization

Skill specializations are a layer of customization that modifies individual skills to a specific task. For example, the Strafing skill can be specialized to be used multiple times and inflict the Gale effect.

Strafing: Gale > Consecutive Use
Zephyr's Nock: Damage Increased > Cooldown Reduction
Nature's Blessing: Whirlpool Attribute
Decisive Sniping: Charging Time Reduction > Charged Damage Increased
Valiant Brawl: Cruel Smite > Damage Increased
Guillotine Blade: Charges Damage > Cooldown Reduction > AoE Damage
Ascending Slash: Cooldown Reduction > Damage Increased

Weapon Mastery

Weapon Mastery in Throne and Liberty serves as an additional layer of passive bonuses that modify specific stats of a weapon and the overall build. Players can only opt to take a select number of passive nodes at a time and unspec out of them at the cost of some Sollent.

The Greatsword & Longbow mastery track progression is as follows:

Greatsword: Rough and Wild > Fierce Attack > Fierce Glare > Ultimate Impact > Complete Stun

Longbow: Wedge of Oppression > Gale Arrowhead > Pointy Thorns > Critical Nock > Brutal Shooter

Longbow is an excellent DPS weapon for both PvE and PvP (Image via NCSoft)

Gear progression:

The Gear Progression during leveling for this build is similar to our Sword and Shield/Wand build. We will rely on items from Codex rewards from Campaign Chapter completions to see us through the campaign and get our fresh start in the endgame.

The best Codex pickups are:

Legionnaire Greatsword: Chapter 1
Rutaine's Ring of Wonder: Chapter 4
Longbow of the Resistance: Chapter 5
Mask of the Resistance: Chapter 6
Handguards of the Resistance: Chapter 7
Trousers of the Resistance/ Pants of the Resistance: Chapter 8
Glade Stalker Boots: Chapter 9
Heroic Garb of the Resistance/ Heroic Tunic of the Resistance: Chapter 10

Likewise, the best crafting choices are:

Birchwood Longbow
Mantle of Casting
Ironclad Plate Gauntlets
Violent Ring from the Elemental Rings Lithograph chapter

Players will need to extract the most value from their gear, as upgrading items in the endgame can be quite expensive. This cost can be greatly mitigated by transferring upgrade levels from Green to Blue and Blue to Purple gear.

Best stats to level up for Greatsword & Longbow build in Throne and Liberty

Stat points in Throne and Liberty are gained through leveling and from gear. They can be allotted to four individual stat groups. These groups offer specific bonuses. At certain point thresholds, players can take advantage of milestone bonuses, which boost all associated affixes and can push a build's damage and defense to a higher level.

For the leveling part, players are better off with 20 points in Dexterity, 20 points in Strength, and the rest going to Perception.

Upon reaching level 50 and moving forward in the endgame, players should prioritize the 50 Dexterity milestone. After meeting that goal, the rest of the points should be spent on Strength primarily, and Perception if hit chance or other effect chances are needed.

It's important to note that the 49 stat points gained from leveling should be spent carefully as beyond the 20-point investment mark, players will hit diminishing returns. For example, players start with 10 base stats each and can invest 20 points into Strength to reach milestone 30, but reaching 31 Strength will need 2 points and so on.

Best endgame setup for Throne and Liberty Sword & Wand build

Moving into the end game of Throne and Liberty can be a lengthy process as several pieces of this build are obtained from different sources. Furthermore, the two weapons have multiple high-performance skills, so endgame builds will need a lot of skill books for every skill to be on maximum level.

Strafing is damage and sustain rolled into one skill (Image via NCSoft)

Important skills:

The important skills do not particularly differ from the leveling portion. Players will likely need to level up the rest of the kit whenever they can spare resources. Utility-heavy skills like Blitz, Purifying Touch, Healing Touch, Willbreaker, and Devastating Smash become more prevalent in the endgame and should be swapped out as needed.

Ideal skill rotation

As it is generally better to camp Longbow, the ideal skill rotation for trash mobs and non-boss encounters is:

Deadly Marker > Strafing > Strafing > Zephyr's Nock

For stronger enemies and boss encounters, it's better to opt for:

Ensnaring Arrow > Nature's Blessing > Decisive Sniping > Blitz > Decisive Sniping

When in melee, the easiest rotation to follow is:

Willbreaker > Valiant Brawl > Stunning Blow > Death Blow > Ensnaring Arrow > Ascending Slash

Using DaVinci's Courage, Deadly Marker, and Nature's Blessing off cooldown is highly advised.

Gearing Progression

Players should aim to replace their Resistance-series Blue-tier gear with well-rolled Blue gear by farming open-world dungeons and various Field bosses of Throne and Liberty for Best-in-slot Purple gear.

A good set to aim for is Shadow Harvester for its incredible 2-piece and 4-piece bonus of 14% Critical Damage Increase and +10% Added Attack Speed. Like most other DPS builds, the cloak should be a Supreme Devotion as the Critical Chance and Cooldown Recovery are invaluable.

The Violent Signet offers a significant damage boost that is rare for Blue-tier gear and can be left unchanged for a long time. The other ring should be a Sapphire Dimensional Band as its Amber counterpart's stats aren't as lucrative.

Players should aim to farm the Clasp of the Conqueror as soon as possible, as it is truly the best-in-slot. Bracers of the Primal King is also a relatively easy find while farming Cave of Destruction.

Belt of Bloodlust can be a good choice for the endgame, but Belt of the Endless Slaughter is an excellent backup option due to the former's scarcity. As for the weapons, the largest boost to the build's damage output comes from the Karnix's Netherbow. As for the melee enthusiasts, Duke Magna's Fury Warblade is the goal.

For those blessed with rare drops, getting your hands on an Adentus's Gargantuan Greatsword or a Tevent's Arc of Wailing Death will significantly ramp up your damage output, but don't hold your breath for it.

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Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh